He wished he was good.

He wondered, quietly, if he ever would be again.

“He ordered his Messiers to open fire on my ships!” one of the video callers added.

He had.

“He dragged my crew away to the dreadnought! I haven’t seen them since.”

No, because they were Metals now.

Mokuba added, “I spent the better half of six months in a constant state of panic trying to hide our sanctuaries!”

And oh, he’d been so close to finding them and HIVE’ing all those Metals.

“So why,” said Wynn coldly, “is this monster here?”

Monster.

He stiffened his shoulders against the word, clenched his fists to bear it.

And still he stayed silent.

“And what of—”

“QUIET!” Ana slammed her fists down on the table, spilling her drink. The room plunged into silence. The ale slowly spread across the table. She glared at the people at the table. “The HIVE did that—Mellifare did that. Not Di.”

Then she turned her golden gaze to him. He had forgotten what that was like, the trust in her eyes.

“He’s here to help us,” she went on, “and Goddess knows we need it. I need it.” Then she sat down. The table was quiet, even if the people in the videos murmured to themselves. It was quite clear that no one agreed with Ana.

Why should they?

He had done so many terrible things—

Mokuba’s eyebrows furrowed. “. . . Did you just call him Di?”

The name of Ana’s Metal. Everyone in the room knew D09. They thought they knew what he looked like—Metal, like Xu. He had memories of almost everyone at this table. Redbeard, who gave him oil one year to grease his joints. Cullen, who gave him the sage coat he loved so much. Mokuba, who he knew from the incident at the Iron Shrine, and the leader of the Red Dawn, and almost every face across the walls. He knew them, their names, their debts to Siege, and the ones who simply came to help.

They did not know him—but they should.

“Yes,” he replied for Ana, and turned to Mokuba. He felt the color of his eyes change, like shrugging off a coat, to something much lighter. Coal dark to moonlight white. “I am.”

The guests who were not standing jerked to their feet in shock. Murmurs of “D09” passed across the video feeds, and across the lips of the people at the table, wondering how he looked so human. A few wondered whether he was a monster.

He was.

That was not up for debate.

“Di . . . ,” Wynn murmured, and then her eyes widened. “Oh! Ana—that Di? The one you . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Ana nodded sheepishly.

Di was not sure whether he wanted Wynn to finish that sentence. The one Ana what? Whatever it meant, Wynn’s demeanor toward him softened instantly, and she pressed a white-gloved hand against her mouth in surprise.

He bowed low to all of them. “I am sorry that I hurt you.”